Dream Journal entry: Includes information from the movie, Running With Scissors, based on the memoir by Augusten Burroughs; two dreams and the clear realization upon awakening: I love being in control of myself!

In the movie, Running With Scissors, the young teenage boy’s parents are in the process of breaking up. The mother, an aspiring poet, indulges her son by keeping him out of school and with her at home. After her husband leaves, she hands her son off to her psychiatrist, who adopts him. Everyone around Augusten is repressed and dysfunctional, except the psychiatrist who’s just plain wacky. At one point the boy bemoans the fact that he lacks anyone to set limits and controls for him. After several years of desperation he decides to take responsibility (control) for himself. He leaves for New York to make it on his own and ends up writing several books, including the memoir upon which the movie is based.

In the first dream I wake up in what seems to be this reality when I sense threatening activity around me. Something is being placed on my bed behind me. I’m lying on my right side and when I open my eyes to look around, I see two black human shapes (shadow people?), one on either side of my bed. The one behind me has put something on my bed. Without turning my head I can see him and the stack of magazines he’s placed in the crook of my legs. The black shadow person in front of me is attempting to reach for something on my bedside stand but stays beyond my reach. I try to yell and grab him but I have no control over my body; I can’t make it move. Eventually, I force a weak yell out, and worry that my wife heard it in her bedroom. At that point I’m able to move my body and the shadow people disappear. (I look at the shadow people in this dream as a device to get my attention, not harm me. In other dreams, cutting my hand or doing something else that’s ordinarily painful wakes me up to something I need to remember, perhaps the dream experience itself.)

My mind was fully alert in this experience but my body wouldn’t respond to my commands (intent) to move. When I do regain control I get out of bed and go to the window, evidently still in the dream. The window is opaque, like a bathroom window, and smaller than the window in my “real” bedroom. When I open it, it’s daylight and men are working in my back yard, landscaping it. I talk to them for a minute, then I’m off into another dream. In this one, I meet a wealthy man and his family and get invited to their large farm in the foothills of a small city or town. Once there I realize, while the family may be wealthy, it’s not any more functional than the families portrayed in the movie, Running With Scissors. Everyone in the wealthy family seems to have their own problems and live in their own world. As I wake up in this reality I’m greeted by the graphic affirmation: I love being in control of myself! I can’t decide whether this message is a conclusion drawn by my own mind or if it’s the final element in this series of productions that have been so magically presented to me.

Collective Spontaneity versus Central Command and Control

Since retiring in late 2006, I’ve had to make adjustments to old behavior patterns because I want to maintain both my physical and mental health. I’ve done well in some areas but not so well in others. For example I’ve continued my morning stretching routine although I’ve cut out some calisthenics, and my wife and I walk four miles about three times a week. In spite of this and an affirmation about how I love to look and feel great, I’ve gained about sixteen pounds since retiring. I love to eat and even though I repeat my affirmation and exercise almost every day, I haven’t taken full responsibility for controlling my diet. I’m taking in more calories than my body needs and letting myself eat and drink things my body no longer likes. My stomach has become sensitive to bread products. They cause irritation and indigestion, and if I have more than one drink of alcohol, I get a headache.

When I look at my physical body, I see a colony of 50 to 100 trillion cells, each one conscious in its own right, yet separate and unique. And most amazing, they all work together to give me this whole body experience I so often take for granted, no matter how or what I think of my body and how I treat it. In one way this is my body and in another way it’s the collective expression of all the cells that comprise it. It sounds like society doesn’t it? Do I, as the “head” of this collective society, take full command and do as I alone see fit or do I listen to my body and work with it? What’ going to work best for ALL of us?

The movie I saw last night and the dreams I had this morning argue in favor of Collective Spontaneity yet the conclusion drawn by these experiences lead me to conclude that I love being in control of myself! Could it be that we need to strike a balance between the two, that we need to be open to both Collective Spontaneity and Central Command and Control? I do need to exercise more control over what I eat and drink if I want to maintain my desired weight and level of health and vigor. As the eyes and ears of this body who is in a better position to do that? But, do I overstep my bounds and put us all in jeopardy when I, the outer self or ego, over inflate the value of my role while diminishing the role and value of others in this collective endeavor we call life? Is it wise for me to stop listening to my body and the higher levels of consciousness that would give me wisdom and support through insight and understanding? Is it wise for you to ignore the needs of your body and surrounding reality? And, is it wise for political leaders to ignore the needs of its citizens and surrounding countries?

Dis-ease leads to disease. To prevent disease, we need to pay attention to the messages of dis-ease in our minds, bodies and surrounding environment. If we refuse to do so it is at our own peril. We’re all going to die or leave this field of experience some day, of that there’s no doubt, but we do have some measure of control over how and when it happens.

How we define ourselves and the world around us forms our intent, which, in turn, forms our reality.The purpose, or challenge, of life is to learn how to use thought in its various forms to shape energy into a pleasing reality. The prize is a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of a job well done. And, like learning to walk or talk, it is a personal, subjective endeavor that requires creative aggression. It is a great balancing act where one must accept falling down in the course of learning how to stand up. (From: We Create Our Own Reality)

Remember:

Thoughts are “things” with a reality of their own and you an artist. With thoughts in the forms of belief, attitude, value and expectation you paint the landscape of your life. Create a great day!

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Last week Sandra, our granddaughter, Justina, and I went to see the movie The Brave One starring Jody Foster. It’s patterned after the Charles Bronson Death Wish, vigilante movies. In The Brave One, Jody’s character is severely beaten along with her fiance who dies from his beating. Overcoming her fear of leaving her apartment building, she buys a gun and starts putting “bad guys” away, including the three Mexican Americans who killed her fiance. Her behavior is even aided and sanctioned by the detective investigating the “Vigilante” murders.Like the post I wrote earlier, Divorce from Reality, this genre of films seems to treat events as if they’re disconnected too. We can easily see why Jody’s character feels wronged and why she and the detective think her violent behavior should be excused. What gets lost in this equation is the slowly evolving affect of social discrimination. Like cigarettes, overeating and alcohol can slowly subtract days and years from our lives, social discrimination can slowly eat away at our self-esteem and sense of hope. If we let hopelessness turn into enough frustration and anger, it can quickly turn into justification for retaliation.

Why are we so blind to the effects of discrimination? We’ve all felt the sting of discrimination at one time or another, in one way or another. In that state of mind, haven’t you ever felt like whacking someone when you’ve felt wronged? We can’t justify that kind of behavior but we can certainly understand it.

Ultimately, to have sanity in the world, we all need to see the oneness and separation of all things, stop competing with and discriminating against one another, and accept full responsibility for our actions. Until we see our dynamic interconnectedness and realize we create our reality from what we choose to believe, it will be too easy to think of ourselves as the victims of reality and not the creators of it.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)